


Been A Long Time Comin'

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bottom!Sam, Episode fix it, Episode: s11e22 We Happy Few, M/M, Mention of major character death, Porn With Feels, Wincest - Freeform, episode coda, fallout after Sam tries to take the mark, first time in a long time, top!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:23:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Dean's fingers tightened on his mug, knuckles going white. 'No secrets, Sam.' His voice was wrecked and rusted, choked with tears that he'd probably been holding back for hours. 'No more. Goddamn. Secrets.'</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The fallout after Team Freewill Point Two attempts to stop Amara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Been A Long Time Comin'

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is another laptop clean out. Be aware as you read that it was begun before the finale aired and so does not exactly follow the ensuing events. I also took liberties with the conversation between Sam and Dean over Sam's taking the Mark. I was obviously intensely displeased with how this episode went, the writers handling, and the lack of address to the emotional fallout between the brothers over Sam's decision. Anyway, I'm shutting up now. Just read :)

Dean wasn't talking.

He didn't speak when they gathered up Chuck's unconscious body and hauled him back to the bunker; Cas, too—though there was no sign of life in the body, but neither of them were sure what vital signs a vessel actually maintained when an angel was present, especially considering Jimmy Novak had been dead for years and Cas had sole ownership of the vessel, at least before Lucifer. Rowena was no where to be found, likely doing as the rat Clea had pegged her for and finding the fastest way off the sinking ship. Crowley, too, was MIA, but they figured he'd turn up soon enough, either that or head back to hell and shore up the gates for as long as possible in the face of the destruction of…everything. 

He didn't utter a sound as they tucked Chuck up in the guest room he had previously been occupying and checked him over for injuries—though whatever he may have sustained, Sam suspected was far beyond the help of their first aid kit. Dean was silent as a poll bearer as he took Cas down to the vaults and laid him out in one of the empty rooms in the middle of a devil's trap, because Dean wasn't stupid, and since Amara had maxed out the bunker's warding with her little break-in they couldn't be sure just how impenetrable they were now until they were able to do a sweep of the place, and no demon was going to pass up a vessel strong enough to hold an angel for as long as Jimmy's had if they could get their hands on it.

Dean disappeared into his room after that without a word.

Sam showered to get the post-battle grime off, just because there was little else he could do. He felt research was pretty much useless at this point. They'd made their play, and they'd lost. Not only lost the battle, but all their major players as well. He didn't see much point in doing anything but sitting down with a good beer, maybe something stronger for the occasion, and waiting it out. 

He stood under the blast of water and ran his thumb along the pale strip of skin at the inside of his elbow. There was no evidence of the Mark that had nearly emblazoned itself on him. There was a deep ache under the skin, though, like the Mark had tried to burn its way through to the bone, and he could still feel that. 

_We talked about it, Dean._

_We damn well did not talk about anything like this, Sam!_

_You said I'd have to step up, because you couldn't. So this is me, stepping up._

_Not like_ this _! The_ hell _with this. It's not happening!_

_Dean. Someone's got to take the Mark. Someone has to hold her key._

_It doesn't have to be you._

_Who, then?_

_Just…no._

They had stood staring at each other for a long minute, and Sam could see every scenario play out behind his brother's eyes, and they all ended with Sam. If God wouldn't give the Mark back to Dean or Lucifer, and he'd made it very clear that he would not, then Sam was the only logical choice. Wasn't like they could pull some poor unsuspecting bastard off the street and slap him with it. Sam had some, probably naive and misguided, hope that he might be able to withstand the Mark's effects for longer. After all, he was no stranger to resisting darkness, however poor his past track record was. 

And he had Dean.

If Dean had had himself to look after him and protect him while he'd been under the influence of that curse, Sam was pretty sure he'd have come out in better shape. Dean was the protector, the fighter, the one who didn't take 'die' for an answer. He'd proved it again and again with Sam. He wouldn't give up. For Dean, there was no no-win scenario. He found a way, if it took his own soul to do it. He'd proved that, too. So, Sam had trusted that he could wear the Mark so long as Dean was at his side to keep him on the straight and narrow. If things went sideways in the future, then Dean would just have to lock him up and throw away the key. Sam knew he could do that. He'd done it before. 

Sam wasn't at all sure Dean would have ever opened the door to Bobby's panic room if Sam hadn't detoxed from the demon blood. If it had proved to be either keep him locked up or let a raving, demon blood addicted ex-boy-king-of-hell on the loose, then Dean would have melted the key down and left Sam in there for good. He couldn't kill him. Sam couldn't ask that, and he wouldn't. He knew that was one step farther than his brother could go, even in the face of saving humanity. He'd proved that in that abandoned Mexican cantina. It had been a close thing, sure, but Sam blamed the Mark for that.

He turned the water off, dressed, and headed for the kitchen to see what libations they had on hand to herald in the end of all creation. He stopped by Chuck's room to check that he was still unconscious and still breathing. He didn't make the trek to the vaults. He was pretty sure Cas was gone. Amara hadn't been in a merciful mood, and he doubted she was discriminating at all with the grace she set to the torch in Jimmy's body. He passed by Dean's room and found the door, surprisingly, open, and Dean wasn't inside. Maybe he'd gone back down to check on Cas himself. Just in case. 

But Dean wasn't in the vaults.

He was camped out by the coffee pot in the kitchen, a steaming mug in his hand, another on the counter, like he'd known Sam was coming. Sam hesitated in the doorway. Dean didn't acknowledge his presence one way or the other, so he stepped down and went to retrieve the mug. It wasn't the bourbon he'd planned on, but that could wait he supposed. He slid onto the stool across from Dean. 

'Are you…all right?' he asked tentatively. 

Dean had taken the hardest hit when Amara threw him back after he tried to stop her hurting Chuck. Sam had thought that he'd dislocated his shoulder at the time, but when he'd slung Jimmy's body up in his arms later, it had dispelled that worry. Still, there was the possibility of bruised or cracked ribs, Dean had been holding himself pretty tightly on the way home, and they both had plenty of cuts and other contusions. 

Dean said nothing, didn't even look up. Sam nibbled on the inside of his bottom lip. He remembered Dean telling him once about not talking for a while after Mom was killed. It wasn't that uncommon a reaction to trauma, though Dean had seen a hell of a lot worse since and it hadn't tied up his tongue so far. Sam could probably concede that God dying was pretty high on the trauma list, but Dean had never professed that much faith in the…man, anyway. He wondered if it didn't have more to do with Amara.

Dean had held himself together admirably in her presence. Sam had honestly worried a lot more about Dean's trying to run interference on Amara's behalf than he did about his reaction to Sam taking on the Mark. Dean kept it together, though, only lurching to her defense once, and Sam had been prepared, holding him back with a strong arm across his chest. The tension in Dean's body had never left after that, and he'd avoided her gaze, a feat of will that Sam—completely unaffected by her 'charms'—had to admire, because even he could see the naked betrayal in her eyes, and it almost made him feel sorry for her. Dean had to feel ten times worse with the compulsion to save her, protect her, running through his blood. Sam had no comparison, other than Dean's protection of _him_ over the years, and if that was what Dean was up against trying to resist? It was really a wonder all it took was Sam's hand to hold him back.

'Dean?' Sam tried again. Still no response. He pushed his coffee aside and reached across the table.

Dean's eyes tracked immediately to the inside of Sam's right arm, the pale, slightly pink from his shower patch of skin below his rolled up shirt sleeve. His breath hitched audibly in his throat, and he made a low, tortured sound that tore Sam open more effectively than a werwolf claw. Sam pulled his arm back, tugged his sleeve down and put his hands in his lap. Dean's gaze stayed riveted on the table where Sam's arm had been.

'Dean, please. Can I look you over?' Sam asked as softly as he could manage. 'I need to know…you're okay.'

Dean shook his head. Sam wasn't sure if it was a direct answer to his request, or just his brother trying to shake the nightmare image of the Mark embossed on Sam's skin out of his head. He sat still, waiting.

Dean's fingers tightened on his mug, knuckles going white. 'No secrets, Sam.' His voice was wrecked and rusted, choked with tears that he'd probably been holding back for hours. 'No more. Goddamn. Secrets.'

Sam breathed out slowly, tried to keep his tone soft and level, reasonable, so that he had a chance of getting an explanation in before Dean exploded. 'It wasn't a secret, Dean. It was the plan. God's plan. You said so yourself.'

Dean's hand moved faster than Sam could see, shoving his coffee cup across the table so that it shattered against the cabinets a few feet away. His eyes were on fire when he finally looked up. On fire and bloodshot with too much unacknowledged pain. 

'And that got us exactly-fucking-where!' he raged.

His hands were on the table now, pressing down, ready to give him a boost off the stool so he could turn and run. Sam's hand snapped out and grabbed Dean's wrist. He wasn't letting his brother escape. Not this time. Not like this.

'Do you trust me?' Sam asked, voice still level.

Dean stared, shocked and pissed as a trapped viper. 'What the fuck does that have to do with anything?'

'Do you _trust_ me?' Sam asked again. Dean's arm jerked in his grip, but Sam held him fast. 'You asked me to do this, Dean. You said you couldn't. This is the way it had to be done.'

'I said I couldn't _kill_ her,' Dean spat. 'If you only wanted to lock her away, then use the tool best suited to the damn job!'

Dean twisted his wrist free, but Sam launched over the table, getting hold of the back of his shirt, long enough to hold him still until he could get around it to face him. Dean slashed out with an arm to  shake Sam's grip, took a step back, but Sam moved with him. 

'It would have destroyed you, Dean!' Sam said. 'In no time at all, it would have eaten through you because—'

'What? I'm weak?' Dean sneered. He shoved Sam back out of his space, but didn't try and make a break for the door. Sam let him have the extra couple of feet. 'So what? Let it fucking have me!'

Sam stood in front of his brother, spitted like a sacrificial lamb at the flame, struck dumb by the venom in Dean's words. He swallowed and swallowed again, trying to find his voice. 

'Do you think…for one _second_ that I could have watched that happen?' 

Dean glared at him. 'But you expected _me_ to do it?'

'No, Dean. No.' Sam shook his head. 'I expected you to keep it from happening to me.'

It was Dean's turn to be dumbstruck. 'What?'

'I wasn't strong enough for you, Dean,' Sam whispered. 'And I am so sorry for that.'

'What the hell are you talking about, Sammy?' Dean asked, hoarsely. Sam hung there, lost, face raw with an emotion that made Dean's stomach turn. He'd seen it before. In a church, forever ago, and not nearly long enough. 'Sam…?'

Sam held up a hand to forestall another outburst. 'Dean, if I was any kind of brother, the kind of brother that you _needed_ me to be, I could have kept you with me. I could have saved you from that thing on your arm—'

'You did save me, Sam.'

'And at what cost!' Sam nearly shouted. 'If I was… _enough_ for you, like you are for me, it would never have come to that. Amara wouldn't be free. You wouldn't be—'

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and gave him a hard shake, much harder than he intended, enough to make Sam flinch in pain. 'You _are_ enough,' he said fiercely. 

'Am I?' 

Dean stared. 'Sammy, what're you…? What is this?'

'You aren't mad at me for agreeing to take the Mark to win this fight. You're afraid—afraid you aren't strong enough. But you are, Dean, you _are._ ' Sam held out his arm, pulled his sleeve back. 'I could have taken the Mark. I could have worn it—forever. Because I had you to keep me safe, to keep me sane.' Sam gripped his arm like the Mark was actually there, like its almost-shadow was hurting him even now. 'You are all that I need, Dean. I trust you. I know you would never let me fall into the dark…you never have.' 

Dean was gutted, emptied out by his brother's confession. 'Sam, you're talking crazy. You're—'

Sam grabbed Dean on either side of his face and yanked him forward. The kiss was bruising, nothing close to tender. It was a direct expression of the desperation and frustration Sam was feeling, translated into a mashing together of teeth and lips, until he was forced to pull back and breathe. 

'Dammit, Dean, why can't you see?' Sam gasped. 

It had been…a long time. So long that Dean had forgotten how Sam's mouth always tasted vaguely metallic, and how his brother kissed with his whole body, like all his limbs had to get involved, wrap themselves around Dean and hang on. Even now, he had a knee between Dean's, didn't even realize it, and was leaning into him and clinging. His fingers had worked up into Dean's hair and were absently flexing in an erratic rhythm that matched the apprehension in his eyes. Sam's thumbs found their way under Dean's jaw, pushed it up, forcing eye contact.

'If I could have done this for you…' he murmured. 'But I was afraid.'

Dean grasped Sam's wrists, stilled his hands, and dragged them down out of his hair. 'Sam, there's no reason—. It's done. There's no Mark. You don't need to do this.' 

Dean hated himself for saying the words, hated the immediate rejection he saw flare in Sam's eyes, but he set him away, pushing him back a step, because even now Dean didn't have the strength it would take to follow this path and survive its outcome. It had ended in Sam walking away fifteen years ago, _running_ away, half a country away, and not speaking to Dean for four years because Dean had turned him away then, too.

'I was never enough.' Sam laughed bitterly. 'Not then. Not now.'

'Don't!' Dean's fingers found a handful of Sam's ridiculously soft hair and yanked hard. 'Don't you…' His teeth found Sam's pulse point and bit down, sucking hard, bringing warm blood up to the surface. He pressed his lips to the bruise, and then his cheek and whispered, broken, in the shell of Sam's ear, 'You weren't _enough_ , Sammy. You were too fucking _much_ , and I couldn't…I couldn't take that. You were too good for me. Way too good.'

Sam made a mewling sound deep in his throat and was suddenly all around Dean, arms and legs wound and woven with Dean's, holding on so tight it was hard for him to draw breath. 'You're an idiot, Dean,' he whispered against his brother's mouth before he was kissing him again with no less force but a lot more directed intent.  

Dean’s hands found their way to the small of Sam’s back, bracketed it, jerked him in tight to settle Sam’s slim hips between his thighs. ‘Sam…we do this, we go back to this, and I can’t––’

‘The world’s ending, Dean.’ Sam slanted his mouth to drive deeper, but pulled back at his brother’s sudden stillness, met his angry, frightened gaze with hot annoyance because even now with the feverish press of Sam’s desire against his thigh, he could still stumble on his own insecurities. ‘Even if it wasn't,’ Sam grasped the sides of his head, thumbs rubbing hard against the stubbled line of his jaw. ‘Even if it wasn’t, I'm not going anywhere. Ever. This is my life, and I can only do it with you by my side.’ Sam kissed him again, slower, deeper, watched the uncertainty drain from his eyes and murmured, ‘You’re a fool if you ever thought I was too good for you, and you're a fool for letting me go because of it, Dean Winchester.’

‘Had to give you a chance, Sammy.’ Dean’s hands found their way under the hem of Sam’s tee, pushed up along the hard, muscled plane of his back, fingers hooking in on either side of his spine, finding each individual vertebrae, and feeling Sam shiver in response to the stimulation as easy and sweet and completely as he had all those years ago. ( _Protect each other’s backs, boys, and I don't just mean figuratively,_ John had always said. _A man’s spine is his greatest vulnerability. Leave it unprotected for a moment and you're inviting death._ ) Sam found a special kind of erotic significance in turning his back to Dean, baring his spine, trusting his brother to never harm him. 

‘Had to let you go, had to let you be who you wanted to be,’ Dean continued, fingers finding the old secret spots with ease, making Sam go weak in the knees, lean his weight into Dean and breathe heavily against his throat. ‘This life had me, Sammy. It wasn't never lettin’ go, and it wasn't what you wanted, and I couldn't bear to see you unhappy just so I could have you with me.’

‘Jesus, Dean…Jesus.’ Sam clutched at Dean’s shoulders for balance, found purchase with his teeth at the large tendon running up the side of Dean’s neck, moaned at the gasp it pulled from his brother’s throat. ‘I thought––’

‘No, Sam, no. Never a day’s gone by that I didn't want this.’ Dean’s fingers traveled a path back down Sam’s spine to the knot of scar tissue just above the waistband of his jeans, lingered there until Sam went still. ‘But I––I had to keep the door open for you, had to hope that this would end one day and you could walk away free and clear, but I'd never be able to walk with you, Sammy, I knew that, and I couldn't survive bein’ left behind again.’

Sam was struck dumb by Dean’s confession but at the same time it made him furious over all the lost time, the decade of misunderstanding that had them wasting all those precious years only to bring them to the end of everything before they could finally admit to this thing that had been between them all along. 

‘Stop talking,’ Sam growled and shoved Dean backward. He hit the wall, flinched a little, maybe at the ribs Sam had suspected were bruised after all, but it didn't stop him covering his brother’s body, every inch of it, with his own, holding him to the wall while he devoured his mouth. 

Dean tipped his head up and let Sam have his way, kept his hands flat to Sam’s back, fingertips digging in through muscle to the bones beneath, tracing them, feeling their strength and their fragility all at once, knowing this body that blanketed him was his, all his, could have _been_ his for years if he'd had the courage to reach out and take it, and now they had a night, maybe not even that, maybe only a few hours.

‘We gonna do this on the kitchen table, Sammy,’ Dean asked when he could catch a breath, lips quirked. 

Sam startled for half a second, suddenly conscious of the rhythm his body was striking up, how very close to the edge he was already riding, the damp heat of his brother’s erection against the inside of his thigh. He shook his head once. ‘Not even gonna make it that far,’ he snarled and grabbed Dean’s collar, hauling out and twisting them around, so that he had Dean settled between his thighs, heavy and hard, rocking against him. ‘I've had the fucking bed and candlelight and roses,’ he gasped as Dean gave a hard thrust against him that sent lightening up his spine. ‘Had it years ago, and I don't need it anymore. Just need…you.’

Dean had been a romantic once, lifetimes ago, before he'd discovered love could cause equal parts pain to the ecstasy it promised. He'd given Sam the star treatment when he could afford it, when they stopped moving long enough––evenings by the fire nested in blankets on the floor, out under the stars on warm summer nights. There hadn't literally been roses, or wine, or anything like that, but he'd done his best to treat Sam right, to show him a world not filled with gruffly given orders and the smell of gunpowder and the slick stink of blood and guts on his hands. That boy was gone, though, lost years ago in an apartment fire that turned more than just his girlfriend to ash, maybe even before that when Dean wasn't around to see it happen or stop it, or maybe when he was and he was just too blinded by the innocence he so desperately needed to hold onto for his brother’s sake. 

Sam’s hand was in Dean’s pants now, had his zipper down, fingers curling around the hard, full curve of his flesh. Dean groaned, slamming his hands against the wall to catch his weight and keep his balance. He was peripherally aware of Sam’s free hand working his own pants loose, shoving them down, but it was hard to be cognizant of much more than Sam’s long deft fingers stroking at him, pulling him closer and closer to his climax with each sweet friction-filled squeeze of his hand. He remembered this. He remembered how Sam’s hands had always been big for his age, had always engulfed him so easily, stroked him in perfect rhythm with just the right amount of pressure, like he'd been born for nothing else. 

‘Sammy…’ 

Sam understood everything in the low groan of his name, the plea for more, the warning that Dean wasn't going to be able to last, the question asking permission; and Sam would have flipped himself right there, spread himself against the wall and let Dean split him open, but he wanted to see his brother’s face, watch the fire in his eyes turn them bright and nearly incandescent like he remembered as he climbed up and up and finally came with them wide open, shining like emeralds in sunlight as they stared deep into Sam’s. He tugged at his brother’s hips, dragged him forward until he was forced to step past the tangle of jeans and boots pooled at Sam’s ankles. It took no time at all for him to catch on. Sam grinned wildly at the ease with which they still read these moves between them the same as they knew how to move through the night on a hunt, silent and soundless as shadows, as in tune to one another as fine instruments keyed to the same pitch. 

Dean twitched hard in Sam’s hand at the overt invitation, dribbled a thin stream of come that slicked up Sam’s stroking. He grabbed Sam’s thighs, fingers squeezing into flesh, leaving marks for later, if there was a later, and lifted him, hoisted him against the wall and pressed against him. Sam withdrew his hand from between them, looped his arms around Dean’s neck and threaded his fingers in his hair, tilted his hips forward so that Dean felt the warm press of his buttocks parting to welcome him. He groaned again, wordless and wanton, thrust forward to feel the first tense pressure of Sam’s hole against the tip of his cock, fluttering, flowering, opening for him, begging to draw him in. 

Sam arched hard at the first burning stretch of Dean’s cock breaching him, slow and dry and rough. He bit his lip until it bled, tasted the copper in his mouth and then dipped his face to kiss Dean breathless, left them both gasping. He buried his face at Dean’s throat and clung, tipping his hips further forward, easing the drag as Dean pushed into him, grunting tiny animal sounds in the back of his throat, cock pulsing like he might come at any second. Dean pressed him hard against the wall again, hands moving to spread his ass, to make room as he slid deeper and deeper until Sam was gasping and whining with the fullness of his brother inside him. 

Between them, Sam’s cock was giving up steady pulses of wet heat. Dean could feel it through the cotton of his shirt. He reached down to jerked the fabric up and out of the way, felt Sam’s iron hard heat slide against his belly and gave up a sound that was half sob and half snarl. He thrust upward, seating himself deeper, felt Sam clench and spasm around him, heard him give a punched little cry and then curl impossible tight just before his belly was splashed with warm gouts of come. Sam’s shuddering release, the aftershock pinging across his nerves and making his muscles quiver and twitch had Dean coming half a breath behind him, yelling out his orgasm like some primal victory cry.

When he could see and breathe again, when he became aware of the sticky, cooling mess between their bodies, and the way Sam was clinging harder, trying to keep himself aloft pinned between Dean’s body weight and the wall, he maneuvered Sam down to his feet, looped his arm around his back and held him up, leaning into the wall with his other arm, giving Sam space to be able to breathe again. Sam titled his head back, face split with a ridiculously wide grin, and laughing Dean figured out a moment later. He frowned, but Sam just pressed forward and kissed him, lazy and slow, fingers winding into his shirtfront despite the slick mess of his own come drying in the fibers. 

‘You always were so fucking loud,’ he huffed, amused. ‘It's a wonder Dad never heard us.’

Dean gave a low, playful snarl and nipped at Sam’s lower lip. ‘’S your goddamn fault,’ he accused with his own slow smile. ‘You always were such a hot, sexy bitch.’

‘Jerk,’ Sam whispered and dragged Dean forward into another kiss. 

There was still a world to save, and they were going to try, they both knew that. They'd done more with less in the past. There was always a way, it was just dependent on the price they were willing to pay. But for now, for these few moments, they were saving something even more important.

Each other.


End file.
